The meaning of being is the being of meaning: On Heidegger's social pragmatism

Heidegger has been taken by many as a prophet of extremity, a nihilist, an existentialistic individualist, and a destroyer of normativity. This article offers a sympathetic reading of Brandom's efforts to extricate Heidegger from such readings and to set out a way to read Heidegger's philosophy of language and action that underscores their fundamental sociality and normativity. Herein it is shown specifically why Brandom must turn to Heidegger's work as a testing ground for his own proposal of an inferentialist semantics. In tandem, Brandom's Kantian reading of Heidegger is analysed and assessed.